Thursday, December 13, 2012

Well, everyone, this is it: my last post in this blog in its current iteration.

It's been lovely having this vast audience with which to share my views. I mean, not really vast (or even more than a very few people), but it's nice to remember that the work that I do can have meaning in the world. You know, if anyone ever studies Don Mullan or Sr. Helen (which I hope someone will - I think they've done valuable humanitarian work and that deserves to be highlighted and criticized and studied and interrogated and praised in mediums other than the newspaper and this blog), it'll be nice for me to know that it was me who made that possible. Well, me and the fact that they did all this hard work and then donated things to Depaul, which provided a space to study. (It's good to keep things in context.)

I finished my project on Monday, granting me some much-needed time to write the hundreds of pages of papers that I had to write for finals week and the week after that at Loyola. (Okay, sixty-ish, but it felt like hundreds.) I really want to thank the people that made this all possible. My supervisors were fantastic women who really supported me when I needed it and stepped off when they thought I was capable of doing things on my own - and they made a space for me and allowed me to come in and work in a space where they really didn't have the resources to take on another intern, really, but they made the time and did me a favor and that's wonderful.

So, signing off with just a few last pictures:

So: the last boxes! They are completely done, and a finding aid has been begun. That's a nice feeling. And, as of now, they live right behind the CSJs, who I finished ages ago!

But these boxes are for the next intern, who will tackle the last portion of the collection. I don't envy them: it's a lot of work. But I was glad to have begun it!